June – Week 5 Summary

02Jul

June 27, 2011

In a grand display of inserting her foot in her mouth, Michele Bachmann, at the kick-off of her presidential campaign in Waterloo, Iowa, compared her spirit to that of Waterloo’s John Wayne. Only problem is that it wasn’t the Western movie star, Waterloo’s John Wayne was none other than famous serial killer, John Wayne Gacy. While the movie actor Wayne is in fact from Iowa, he was from a town nearly three hours away called Winterset. Just what we need, a dimwit with a serial killer spirit running our country. (Full story on Washington Times)

When it comes to conflicts of interest, the government is the master. If you’re not familiar with Eric Cantor, let me fill you in, he’s the baby that shut down debt ceiling negotiations last week. Well, come to find out, he’s got an investment in a mutual fund with performance directly affected by debt ceiling brinkmanship. He’s actually betting on our economy, his investments perform well when U.S. debt is undesirable. This would be a huge conflict of interest in my book, he plays a part in controlling an aspect that he’s hoping fails, allowing him to profit greatly. If we’re making these members of government disclose their financial investements why aren’t we taking action when there is such an obvious conflict of interest. (Full story on Salon)

June 29, 2011

How many of you drink diet sodas as a healthier alternative to the regular corn syrup laden versions. If you raised your hand you may want to reconsider, especially if you thought you could constantly drink diet sodas with no consequences. Multiple scientific studies have discovered that diet soda drinkers experienced 70 percent greater increases in waist circumference compared with non-diet drinkers. The reason for this is that artificial sweeteners trick your body into thinking its receiving proper nutrition, this causes the body to go into an emergency fat storage mode where any fat that is ingested is kept to help you survive. Additionally, aspartame, a very common artificial sweetener, has been found to raise blood sugar levels in diabetes-prone mice. The lesson to be learned is that, just as with everything else, moderation is key. If you’re drinking a single serving of a diet soda a day, you’re probably not going to experience these issues. But if you’re drinking several servings every day, you may want to switch to water, obviously switching to non-diet soda isn’t going to fix anything either. (Full story on The Consumerist)

July 1, 2011

Did you know that CEOs, on average, earn roughly 300 times the average worker (that’s 200 times more than it was in the 90s). Companies are already required to publish CEO pays. What they haven’t been required to publish is the average compensation for workers and a ratio comparison to the total compensation for the chief executive. Well, new regulations are in the works that propose they begin doing just that, but there’s a problem, large corporations have been lobbying against it from the very beginning. Hmm, what is is they have to hide. (Full story on Salon)

No Specific Dates

Dollars & Sense’s Gerald Friedman wrote an incredibly detailed investigation and argument against our current healthcare system and for a single-payer system. He presents his arguments clearly and with evidence/facts/research to back them up and doesn’t resort to rambling about Socialist agendas, etc. Whether you think a single-payer system is the answer or not doesn’t matter, this article is definitely worth a read. If anything to learn the true problems with our current healthcare system. (Full post on Dollars & Sense)

While the article is dated from April it couldn’t be any more relevant. As we approach the deadline for the government’s budget, and the risk of defaulting on our debt, the GOP is still refusing to raise our debt ceiling unless the Democrats are willing to agree to significant cuts to numerous social programs (among other things). Let’s roll the clock back, starting in 2002, the very same Republicans that are refusing to raise the debt ceiling today were all debt ceiling raising fools. McConnell, Boehner, Cantor, and Kyl, all but once all voted yes to raising the debt ceiling (Kyl voted against it in June 2002). June 2002, +$450 Billion; May 2003, +$900 billion; November 2004, +$800 billion; March 2006, +$781 billion; September 2007, +$850 billion for a whopping grand total of $4 trillion. Here’s the kicker, not once during those five increases did they demand that drastic spending cuts be made (unlike now). Hmm, what’s changed between now and then…let’s see…oh Bush was in the White House then, someone from your own side. They probably wanted to make sure they didn’t make him look incompetent by letting the government default on its debt. Now that a Democrat’s in charge they need to do everything in their power to tarnish his image, since he’s planning to run for re-election. Tell me this has nothing to do with ruining his reputation, I dare you. (Full story on ThinkProgress)

Random Quote

"They spend billions of dollars every year lobbying to get what they want … Well, we know what they want. They want more for themselves and less for everybody else... Good honest hard-working people continue to elect these rich cocksuckers who don’t give a fuck about you..." - George Carlin

Random Quote

"If you want to see the true measure of a man, watch how he treats his inferiors, not his equals." -J.K. Rowling

Random Quote

"Every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies...A theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed." - Dwight D. Eisenhower